Wednesday, 20 June 2012

the one with the mulfi

The one with the mulfi

As monsoon lashes against the Kerala coast, and rains creep up
the sub-continent following their usual trail, I decide that I too in my
fashion must address the Indian obsession with the mango. Clichéd it is, of
course; bordering on oral fixation, true; but, well, cultures perhaps owe it to
themselves somewhat to live up to their stereotypes, especially if said
stereotypes were first generated-for and subsequently were seen-through-and-analyzed-as-thus-by
goras.

Ergo, the mango.

Or rather, if we were to go with the flow,
the magical mangoes from Dharamtallah, which played a critical role in pushing
me from one side of the blogosphere (foodporn-viewing) to the other (foodporn-contributing
or whatever). But long before these magical mangoes, came the train journeys to
Howrah, at the end of the summer holidays. So that is where the story really
begins.

Every June, when Mummy would return to
Calcutta from the glorious environs of what is now Jharkhand, she would be
accompanied, alongside a scrawny child (me), by several baskets bursting with fresh
vegetables and fruits, several gunny sacks full of rice grown on my
grandfather’s land, several bags stuffed with local delicacies – I remember a
particularly delicious home-made snack called jhilkut – and several canvas thailas
full of sundry other items that, like the rest, were far superior to any Bengal
produce, sweetened as they were by the quaint properties of the Jharkhand
water-table. I might be exaggerating slightly – but that, more or less, was the
general picture. Co-travellers were no problem. They were won over with
mountains of food that my grandmother would pack as though for a troop of
soldiers going to Siachen, and if I remember correctly, some of them even went
home with a few goody bags of choice vegetables.

My father, who is somewhat of a posh sort,
would be most annoyed at the spectacle we presented at Howrah. But he would
have no choice but to stuff it all into our creaky fiat premier padmini.

These
days, when I return from Calcutta, my mother clamouringly packs a massive
quantity of stuff for us. Mostly I put up with it. Believe me, it is far easier
to just go with it than explain otherwise to her. Earlier this month, for
instance, I ended up paying through my nose at the excess baggage counter. But
yes, the five kilos of gobindo bhog
rice she had packed was comforting; it is, after all, supremely expensive in
Delhi. 70 rupees a kilo! (No, no, don’t do the math. Apparently, the excess
baggage does not count; she has even offered to return it to me.) And the
magical himsagar mangoes of Dharamtallah do not even fall into this category:
they cannot be had in Delhi for love or money.
The spouse was not amused.

With the
last of the above mangoes, I decide, extremely uncharacteristically I’ll have
you know, to do something special. Mango kulfi did seem appropriate, but I was
faced with a couple of problems: I had neither my usual recipe (that had been twice
tried, with mixed results) nor kulfi moulds. The consequences of moving in and
out of cities with random casualness – one part of one’s worldly baggage is
always elsewhere.

However, my Julie Sahni classic cookbook – Classic Indian Vegetarian Cookery –
suggested that muffin moulds might just as easily be used, a possibility that
appealed for its sheer quirkiness. And Julie Sahni’s recipe, you would have
guessed from all the tautology, was a classic.
So there was no need for condensed milk, evaporated milk, cornflour, milk
powder or even whipping cream. One only needed a litre of regular milk (I
acquired two packets of full-cream from Mother Dairy) and a dash of nutmeg
powder, preferably freshly grated, and some sugar. The mangoes, you would
recall, I already had.

In the traditional mode, I sliced off the
tops and soaked them in water for half an hour.

According to Sahni, “It is the slow cooking
of the milk that imparts that distinct characteristic rabadi aroma only classic
kulfi has. Also, because the milk mixture is frozen without being churned, the
kulfi develops a special grainy texture not unlike that of Middle Eastern
halwa, something between ice-cream and sherbet.”

Luckily, electricity in my Council House-ish
kitchen is subsidized, so I could guiltlessly thicken the milk slowly, on my non-traditional
induction cooker. Simmering the litre after it reached boiling point, and
continuously stirring it (well, okay, one is ideally supposed to stir it
constantly – I did my best) I achieved a rather aromatic slightly-coddled
creamy-texture result, sweetened slightly. To that was added the mango puree,
the dash of nutmeg, and subsequently, in clingfilm-lined muffin moulds, it was
frozen inside generous aluminium foil packets.

1. Bring the milk to boil over high
heat, stirring constantly to make sure no skin forms (as that shall deter
evaporation). Subsequently, lower the temperature to medium and cook the milk,
gently bubbling and boiling, until it is reduced to 400 ml. Stir often so the
milk does not stick or burn. Add the sugar and cool thoroughly.

2. Fold in the nutmeg and mango
pulp.

3. Pour into kulfi moulds (or, at a
pinch, muffin tins lined with cling-film and covered with aluminium foil) and
freeze.

4. Unfreeze and devour.

Notes: As someone with no culinary sense of proportions I did
splash the thickened milk around in my measuring cup once or twice in between
to check if it was thickened enough. Though it’s a bit of a dangerous process,
I would recommend it.

It is
important to keep stirring regularly if not continuously. The last time I’d
attempted it, the milk for the kulfi had got slightly burnt – and though my Russian
gourmet-cook friend, the unfortunate one sampling it, said making it “smoky”
was a good French twist – it is a situation that is not easily rectifiable.

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Vague woman, who's somehow managed to write a novel expounding on the subject; currently working on a PhD that by all accounts is going badly; is in the middle of 'The Heat and Dust Project' - a story of travelling through India on a v.v.tight budget, along with husband Saurav Jha (here referred to mostly as TH).